


The Aftermath

by AccioInvisibilityCloak



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Angst, Canonballed, F/M, Swearing, this one is much less fluffy than usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 14:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2153865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AccioInvisibilityCloak/pseuds/AccioInvisibilityCloak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beatrice looks into Benedick’s eyes, right into those eager baby-blues, and says, suddenly furious again, “Kill. Claudio.”<br/>Ben’s eyes widen even more and he draws back. “Beatrice, don’t you think that’s a bit, ah, extreme?”</p><p> </p><p>Beatrice's point of view on what happens in the aftermath of the party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is a fic I wrote the majority of a while back, and in order to keep occupied while we’ve been waiting on edge for an update, I’ve been editing it. I’m sick of editing it, and I’m still not totally happy with it, but I want to be done, so here you go. Presenting my version of the Kill Claudio scene, which is definitely not going to be as good as the real scene, and I forgot to account for Ben knowing already about what the boys think they saw, so it’s a bit non-canon compliant probably. Lots of swearing in here, and also I can’t be sure the details of what happened to Hero make sense, so sorry if I’m wrong about how it would’ve gone down. Inspiration for this fic comes from several other Kill Claudio fics I've read, as well as from a post on the Tumblr page "shakespearesiphone", translating the scene from the play into a text message conversation. Thanks for reading! (A/N: made some small edits to this story, so it's now very slightly different from when I first posted it. Just couldn't get a few little ideas for edits out of my head today, so I changed those parts.)
> 
> Please do not copy/duplicate this work.

“Beatrice? Are you okay?”

Ben’s voice is hesitant. He knocks at the door.

Beatrice groans internally from her position crouched in the bath, where she had intended to hide from the world and maybe film a quick video explaining why she and Hero would be absent from the Internet for a while. The camera stares coldly from its perch on the sink. Instead of vlogging, though, Bea has been sitting here crying for the past few minutes, kicking herself for letting Hero ever go near that asshole Claudio, for thinking Pedro was anything but an all-around not-so-great jerk, for thinking everything was fine until it suddenly wasn’t.

“Go away,” she says thickly. Why the hell is Benedick still even here? He should be off with his stupid friends calling Hero awful names and generally embodying every terrible quality she’s always said he has. Instead, he calls through the door, “Bea? Have you been crying?”

He just sounds so _concerned_ , and she wants to lose it again just thinking about the way he stuck up for Hero back there. The way he was right by Bea’s side as soon as she called for him, when Hero fainted and she wouldn’t wake up, and she wouldn’t breathe, and Bea couldn’t breathe either with the terror and the fury, and now he’s out there gently asking her to talk to him, to say anything to prove she’s okay. Even after all that she’s done and said to him, he’s out there still trying. Maybe Hero is on to something about him- and the thought of her beautiful, innocent cousin just feels like being stabbed through the heart.

“Oh, what do you THINK I’m doing, Benedick? Celebrating? Hah!” she calls through yet more tears, and the doorknob begins to turn. “Go away, dickface!” _God, I can’t, please just go…_

“Bea, please, don’t cry. It’s okay,” he tries, coming in and seeing her curled in the extremely uncomfortable porcelain bath, probably wrinkling her beautiful cream lace party dress, eyes red and swollen. She glares when the sight actually makes him smile. Who could smile at a time like this?

“I don’t think I could stop if I wanted to, so you might as well just go,” she hiccups, although the tears are subsiding despite herself. Of course he doesn’t listen to her, just grabs a handful of tissues for her from the box on the sink, and joins her in the bath. Seriously?

“You are such an idiot,” she informs Ben, at the same time as he says, “I don’t think Hero did it.” “Wh-What?” she splutters. He hands her another tissue. “I don’t believe for a second that Hero would do something like this to Claud, okay? I know her, and I know there has to be something else going on here,” says Ben, and she can tell he’s sincere, but what good does it do Hero if he believes her and no one else does? Her phone has been buzzing nonstop on the sink, everyone knows what happened now, there’s no help for it.

She turns away from him, tries to move as far away as she can, which, in a bath, isn’t nearly far enough, but she doesn’t have the strength to get up and go further.

“God, I would give anything to fix this. I’d do anything for the person that could make this right. She doesn’t deserve this, it’s just horrible,” she cries, helpless and hopeless and furious.

“Hey, hey,” Ben says softly, putting a comforting hand on Bea’s shoulder. She surprises them both by refraining from throwing it off again. “Beatrice, what can we do? How can we fix this?”

“Honestly? I don’t think it’s fixable. At least, no one I can think of would be able to make Hero stop sobbing her eyes out. L-Leo’s taken her to hospital, we think her lung condition’s flared up again and she might’ve hit her head when she fell, but she was crying from the moment she woke up, Ben. I don’t know what to do. God, I don’t know how to help my best friend!”And Beatrice is crying again, the weight of all those horrid things Claudio and Pedro and John had said about her family pressing down on her, the knowledge that Hero is probably sobbing alone in a hospital bed on her birthday making Beatrice want to scream, to sob along with her.

And then Benedick’s arm slips around her shoulders, and she’s leaning into him, crying on the shoulder of his nice dress jacket, how sweet he was to dress up for Hero’s party. She thinks her foot has fallen asleep beneath her, but she’s distracted by the feel and the weight of his arms around her, and the altogether too-pleasant boy smell that she never got close enough to know he had. And she forgets everything except the tears and the boy in the bath holding her close, and she cries until there’s nothing left.

It’s quiet. It’s silent as the grave in the empty house, and the sun’s gone down so the room is blue with dusk, the light above the sink dimly permeating the room as the window’s supply of sunlight fades.

Ben, still holding her, whispers into the gloom. “Better?”

“A little,” she says through the lump in her throat, and it’s true, now that she’s out of tears she feels drained but better. “Sorry about your shirt.” She can just tell he’s smiling when he quips, “It’ll dry.”

They’re silent for a moment, leaning against each other and listening to the quiet house settling and absorbing the day’s noisy events.

It seems like ages before Ben becomes the first to break the silence, and even he doesn’t seem to be expecting what comes out of his mouth then.

“Remember the other day when I asked you how you felt about olives? And you looked at me like I’d gone insane and you walked away? Well… I’m in love with you, isn’t that weird?” He says it so fast, at first she thinks she must have heard wrong.

She slowly pulls away, sits up to face him. He looks pensive, like he’s trying not to show how afraid he is that he might have said the wrong thing, and she knows she heard correctly. And everything changes.

“You want to know something weirder?” she says quietly.

He looks right at her then, and when she meets his eyes, she loses her breath and has to look away before she can let the words fall out.

“I think- I might, you know… I might love you, too. I mean, I don’t know, I could feel completely different tomorrow, you probably shouldn’t believe a word I say. I’m not even sure how I feel myself. I am not admitting anything here-”

“You love me! You do, Bea, I know you do!” Though the moment is somber, Ben can’t contain his smile, that beautiful smile that almost takes up too much room on his stupid face, and Bea can’t _do_ this right now.

“Don’t be so sure-”

“Well you’re the one who said so!”

“No, just listen, okay. This- this isn’t the best time. I’m confused and exhausted and everything’s just shit right now… and you didn’t let me finish talking, I was going to say I do.” The words are out before she can stop herself.

“You… you were? You do?” He looks ridiculously hopeful in the dim light, and she can’t suppress a tiny smile. She decides to be honest.

“I… I’ve been fighting against this since I was fourteen years old, but I just… I think I love you too much to deny it anymore.” She says it in equal awe and fear, because this is huge, this is a big fucking deal and she is not in the right emotional state for this at all.

Especially not for what happens next, which is that she, Beatrice Future-Spinster-of-the-Universe Duke, leans back towards the boy in her bathtub. For God’s sake, this is Benedick Hobbes of the bird killings we’re talking about, her ex-best friend and mortal enemy, whose arms surround her again and whose lips meet hers at last.

Every thought flies out of her mind as she kisses him back with everything she has, all the passion and frustration and bickering and laughter that’s been building between them for so long, and she can taste her own salt tears and the truth of his feelings as she allows her lips to part just slightly. If both of them are pretty new at this kissing thing, the sparks between them are more than enough to make up for what they lack in technique. And Beatrice hazily reflects, one hand in his thick dark hair, that she’s quite excited to practice some more, but even stupid teenagers in love need to breathe, and the kiss breaks, and Benedick looks absolutely thunderstruck like someone just threw a basketball directly into his face, and Beatrice, tear tracks drying, eyes still puffy, starts to laugh. Ben laughs too, and they sit there in the bathtub, entwined and laughing, until they calm down enough to talk.

Ben presses another kiss to her cheek and says he would do anything for her. “All you have to do is ask, love.”

He looks so earnest, so happy. Bea just wants to be happy… but behind her eyes there’s Claudio holding Hero’s arm in a vicelike grip, calling her whore and liar and bitch, and Hero crumpling to the ground as the tears overtake her, insisting and insisting that she’s innocent until Claudio picks up the beautiful chocolate cake Beatrice and Leo slaved over all last night, and throws it at Hero’s prone form, splattering her dress and the kitchen tiles with chocolate as she’s gasping for breath…

Beatrice looks into Benedick’s eyes, right into those eager baby-blues, and says, suddenly furious again, “Kill. Claudio.”

Ben’s eyes widen even more and he draws back. “Beatrice, don’t you think that’s a bit, ah, extreme?”

“I didn’t mean literally, dick-face. Although if I could get at that bastard with a big old kitchen knife, I swear to God I would. I want to make him writhe. Ben, make him writhe for me,” she spits.

“But are… are you sure Claudio is the enemy here, Bea?” Ben tries, but this just makes Bea angrier.

“Oh, of course you’re going to defend him, he’s your bestest friend ever, isn’t he? Well _fuck_ you, Benedick, you’re just like your dickface friends. I should have known, there’s no love in you,” and she’s climbing out of the tub, and she’s almost at the door when his hand on her arm stops her short. “Let me go! Get out of my house, you coward. Let me go!”

Ben’s looking pretty miffed himself now, but he releases her arm. “I won’t leave until we’re at least friends again. If you aren’t ready for anything more, fine, but I won’t let us go back to hating each other, not this time," he insists.

She glowers at him. “I won’t be friends- or anything else- with anyone who defends Claudio, or Pedro for that matter. They’re setting her up, they have to be, this isn’t her, Ben! You heard the way they talked about her, the things they said! I’ll die before I let anyone hurt her like that and get away with it!”

“I love you, Beatrice Duke!” he exclaims, taking her hand in his. “Okay? I swear, I love you. I’m here.”

“Then prove it!” she screams, tearing her hand away. “Do something about it! Show me.”

“Fine! Okay… if you really want me to, I’ll go talk to Claudio. I can try to clear this up, get him to see reason-”

“Benedick. I don’t care about reason. I want you to crush him. Find a way to make him hurt like Hero’s hurting, do something that will absolutely gut him.”

“Okay… what if he asks about her?” Ben asks warily. Bea almost tells him to punch Claud right in the jaw if he even dares to say her cousin’s name again, but figures that goes without saying.

“Just… tell him the truth.”

“…the truth?”

“Yeah, the truth,” Bea says slowly. “You tell him- AND Pedro- that Hero’s been taken to hospital. Just don’t tell them anything else. Say we don’t know how bad it is, that she might be in for a while, and there are no visitors allowed.” Ben’s concerned face prompts her to add, “I’m sure she’ll be fine soon, but I don’t think Claudio needs to know that, does he?” Bea is trying to convince herself of this as much as Ben, because any alternative is unthinkable.

She can tell Ben feels a little uncomfortable with this, and she almost tells him to forget it, that they can still be together if he stays friends with Claudio, but she knows that isn’t even remotely true, and besides, he’s already speaking again.

“All right, I’m going to go over to Pedro’s right now. I’ll bet anything that’s where they’ll be. I’m going to help you fix this, Bea, don’t worry. I’m going to make sure they regret what they did today. Okay?”

Beatrice nods, the tears starting again. “Th-thank you, Ben. I’m so sorry to put you in the middle of this-“

“I was in the middle of it before it started, Beatrice. I’m not going to sit back and do nothing now. Look, tell Hero I hope she’s doing okay. And take care of yourself, too. She needs you.”

Ben starts to open the bathroom door, ready to confront his friends, and suddenly she just wants him to stay here with her. So Beatrice throws herself onto him in a hug, enjoying the feeling of being in his arms one more time, still sort of reeling from how weird it all is. He holds her until she’s ready to let go, and when she does, he promises to come back over tomorrow and tell her how everything went with Claudio and Pedro, and to text later tonight so she knows he’s okay.

Benedick is Benedick, and he’s always been a complete nerd, so it almost doesn’t surprise her much when he actually freaking kisses her hand like some Shakespearean hero. She can still feel the heat of his fingers and the press of his lips on the back of her hand, even when he pulls away and disappears downstairs.

“I love you, you idiot,” she whispers after him. “Be well.”

And she climbs into the bath again, the porcelain still warm from their tangle of limbs, and calls Leo, trying not to sound too much like a girl who has just been kissed. She learns that Hero is sleeping, but the doctor thinks she’s going to make a full recovery. A few tests to make sure, a new inhaler and an ice pack for the knot on Hero’s head, and with any luck her cousin should be able to come home tomorrow morning.

Reassured, Beatrice gets shakily out of the tub (how does Ben do this so quickly anyway?) and puts a hand on the sink to steady herself. That’s when she notices the still-rolling camera. She turns it off and carries it into her bedroom, where she leaves it on her paper-strewn desk without a second thought.

That night, she falls asleep alone, with Ben’s kiss still on her lips, and her phone in one hand, waiting for a text or a call. She doesn’t dream all night, but in the morning, she wakes up with the memory of warm arms around her. She checks her phone.

No new messages.


End file.
